Jesse Helms

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, before discussing today's bad news about the Federal debt, how about ``another go'', as the British put it, with our pop quiz. Remember? One question, one answer. The question: How many millions of dollars does it take to add up to a trillion dollars? While you are thinking about it, bear in mind that it was the U.S. Congress that ran up the Federal debt that is now slightly in excess of $14 billion shy of $5 trillion. To be exact, as of the close of business yesterday, November 13, the total Federal debt--down to the penny--stood at $4,986,513,994,276.71. Another depressing figure means that on a per capita basis, every man, woman, and child in America owes $18,928.89. Mr. President, back to our pop quiz, how many million in a trillion: There are a million million in a trillion.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. I must object.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the impression will not go away: The $4.9 trillion Federal debt stands today as a sort of grotesque parallel to television's energizer bunny that appears and appears and appears in precisely the same way that the Federal debt keeps going up and up and up. Politicians like to talk a good game--and talk is the operative word--about reducing the Federal deficit and bringing the Federal debt under control. But watch how they vote. Control, Mr. President. As of the close of business, Thursday, November 9, the total Federal debt stood at exactly $4,983,863,012,854.62 or $18,918.83 per man, woman, child on a per capita basis. Res ipsa loquitur. Some control.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, more than 3 years ago, I began these daily reports to the Senate to make a matter of record the exact Federal debt as of close of business the previous day. As of the close of business Wednesday, November 8, the Federal debt stood at exactly $4,984,440,555,073.81. On a per capita basis, every man, woman and child in America owes $18,921.02 as his or her share of the Federal debt. It is important to recall, Mr. President, that the Senate this year missed an opportunity to implement a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Regrettably, the Senate failed by one vote in that first attempt to bring the Federal debt under control. There will be another opportunity in the months ahead to approve such a Constitutional amendment.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I suppose that I am supposed to be discouraged, or at least surprised, that the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency overspoke himself--again--on Halloween by calling me an isolationist and by falsely asserting that I am holding both the Chemical Weapons Convention and this country's national security hostage. Perhaps he was playing trick-or-treat, and if he had stopped by our house, Dot Helms would have placed several pieces of candy in his bag. Seriously Mr. President, I had assumed that Mr. Holum had better control of himself than that--but I suppose he is so concerned about losing his place on the Federal bureaucratic totem pole that he is suffering a case of nervous jitters. His holding hostage outburst on Halloween is ludicrous on its fact. The Chemical Weapons Convention was first submitted as a treaty in the 103d Congress, and Congress refused to ratify it at that time because a number of questions on issues such as verification and cost had gone unanswered. They are still unanswered, and any reasonable prudent American is likely to agree that the convention's approval must wait until the Senate can be certain what it will cost and the degree of risk in premature approval of it. Mr. President, I also find very sad Director Holum's strange assertion that the effort to consolidate ACDA's functions within the Department of State is what he called an isolationist attack on arms control. That one, as the saying goes, is off the wall--and Mr. Holum knows it. The first suggestion about abolishing ACDA was proposed by the Clinton administration in 1993; the State Department even drafted a comprehensive plan to absorb ACDA personnel and funds. Unfortunately, that proposal by Secretary of State Christopher was debated and defeated--not on its merits, but by the same kind of bureaucratic obstructionism that has impeded S. 908, the Foreign Relations Revitalization Act of 1995, every step of the way. So it comes as little surprise, Mr. President, that the plan to reorganize arms control has stirred up a hornet's nest. In testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, one of ACDA's previous Directors, Dr. Fred Ikle, endorsed the plan to abolish ACDA, but warned that: Any effort to trim, or to abolish, a bureaucratic entity hurts the pride and prestige of the affected officials, jeopardize job security, and mobilizes throngs of contractors, captive professional organizations, and other beneficiaries of the threatened agency. When you get right down to it, at the heart of all these protestations regarding the plan to eliminate ACDA are, in fact, no more than a host of self-serving, bureaucratic interests. While nearly every aspect of government is being downsized and streamlined, ACDA's budget request for fiscal year 1996 was increased by 44 percent over the 1995 fiscal year budget. Director Holum's ACDA crowd, you see, proposes to spend fare more of the taxpayer's money and to hire more people. They even tried to commandeer one of the Department of Defense's radar systems in Alaska. Mr. President, when faced with possible elimination, there's nothing the ACDA crowd will not do or say. It is incredible that anyone will try to argue, with a straight face, that arms control will suffer if ACDA is eliminated. Nonsense, there are today more than 3,100 arms control experts working in more than 25 offices scattered throughout the Federal Government. ACDA employs about 250 of the 3,100, only 8 percent of the total number of arms control experts in the Federal Government. Even the Commerce Department has more people assigned to nonproliferation and arms control. Simply put, arms control is big business, and ACDA is small potatoes, and almost irrelevant. That prompted ACDA Director Holum's outburst on Halloween. The truth of the matter is that the State Department and the National Security Council are responsible for arms control policy coordination and negotiation, not ACDA. One of ACDA's inspectors general put it best a few years ago, stating that: Once arms control became important presidential business . . . Secretaries of State and Defense and national security advisers became the dominant figures in arms control. Implementation and verification of arms control are conducted by the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. Since 1989 it has been the on-site inspection agency, not ACDA, that had performed on- the-ground verification for all major arms control agreements. Of all the personnel involved in START inspections so far, fewer than 1 percent were supplies by ACDA. In short, abolishing ACDA will not hurt the conduct of this Nation's arms control one iota. It is not an obvious anachronism--and it is time to bid farewell. By incorporating ACDA's handful of experts in a new, more efficient State Department, Congress can give arms control a comprehensive purview. After all the effectiveness and desirability of arms control depend upon its consideration in the broader foreign policy context. Just as importantly, doing this will save U.S. citizens at least $250 million over the next 10 years. Consolidation makes good business sense and will reduce waste, duplication, and silly bureaucratic turf battles. Finally, any plan that has been endorsed by five former Secretaries of State, from Henry Kissinger to James Baker, can hardly be labeled isolationist. Director Holum should dispense with is schoolboy name- calling. Let the issue of consolidation be debated on its merits.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, on that evening in 1972 when I first was elected to the Senate, I made a commitment to myself that I would never fail to see a young person, or a group of young people, who wanted to see me. It has proved enormously beneficial to me because I have been inspired by the estimated 60,000 young people with whom I have visited during the nearly 23 years I have been in the Senate. Most of them have been concerned that the total Federal debt which is about $15 billion shy of $5 trillion--which will be exceeded this year. Of course, Congress is responsible for creating this monstrosity for which the coming generations will have to pay. The young people and I almost always discuss the fact that under the U.S. Constitution, no President can spend a dime of Federal money that has not first been authorized and appropriated by both the House and Senate of the United States. [[Page S 16817]] That is why I began making these daily reports to the Senate on February 25, 1992. I wanted to make a matter of daily record the precise size of the Federal debt which as of yesterday, Tuesday, November 7, stood at $4,985,913,011,032.65 or $18,926.61 for every man, woman, and child in America on a per capita basis. The increase in the national debt since my report yesterday--which identified the total Federal debt as of close of business on Monday, November 6, 1995--shows an increase of $1,175,550,073.33. That increase is equivalent to the amount of money needed by 174,311 students to pay their college tuitions for 4 years.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Now, let me clarify one more point with the Senator, and then I will conclude this particular line of questioning. One person said this procedure, in addition to being gruesome and cruel, is just 3 inches away from being totally unlawful.

Mr. HELMS. Now move back to the immediately preceding paragraph.

Mr. HELMS. I ask the Senator, it does not just interrupt the life, it concludes the life, does it not?

Mr. HELMS. If the Senator will hesitate a moment, now we get to the meat of the coconut. When the subject of abortion comes up and questions are asked of me, I have a ready question of my own to ask before we begin the discussion. I have asked it of young people, individuals who border on militancy on the abortion issue, and many others. It is a rather compelling question and it is this: What is an abortion? Now, I hope the people of America understand the question, and I hope they understand the answer. I ask the Senator from New Hampshire to answer that question.

Mr. HELMS. I wonder if he would read the first paragraph for me.

Mr. HELMS. First of all, this is not a question; it is a statement of fact for the Record. I admire my friend from New Hampshire for taking this responsibility on the Senate floor. I have been here many times on the abortion issue along with others, and I am very, very proud of Bob Smith. I hope the people of New Hampshire understand that he is making a gallant fight. Now, my question: Has the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire seen the Chicago Tribune editorial of November 5?

Mr. HELMS. Madam President, will the distinguished Senator yield for just a moment?

Mr. HELMS. MacArthur was speaking in terms of how a nation can self- destruct by losing its sense of personal responsibility, its diligence, its willingness to work and to be constructive. I think the Senator is doing a great job on this issue, and I am not going to take up much more of his time. Again I ask the Senator to please read the fourth paragraph of the Chicago Tribune editorial, if he will.

Mr. HELMS. Will the Senator read the sentence again beginning with ``It involves''? Read it slowly so that everybody watching on television or sitting in this Chamber can understand exactly what is being discussed here today.

Mr. HELMS. Would it be fair to say that an abortion is a deliberate intent to destroy the most innocent, most helpless of human life? Is that reasonably correct?

Mr. HELMS. What does the Senator think he meant by that?

Mr. HELMS. I wonder if the Senator is familiar with the quotation so often attributed to the late Douglas MacArthur. General MacArthur said: ``In all of recorded history, there is no nation that survived in prosperity that lost its moral and spiritual motivation.'' Is the Senator familiar with that statement by Douglas MacArthur?

Mr. HELMS. And the law, until fairly recently, took one position with respect to the deliberate, intentional destruction of innocent human life. What did the law say the penalty was to a doctor who did that?

Mr. HELMS. The point is--and I ask the Senator further--Douglas MacArthur was talking about a whole range of things, was he not?

Mr. HELMS. It was murder. And why murder? Because it was intentional?

Mr. HELMS. I will be back with some more questions but I want to compliment the Senator, and I thank him for yielding.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the skyrocketing Federal debt, now slightly in excess of $15 billion shy of $5 trillion, has been fueled for a generation by bureaucratic hot air--sort of like a hot air balloon whirling out of control--which everybody has talked about, but almost nobody even tried to fix. That attitude began to change, however, immediately after the November 1994 elections. The 104th Congress promised to hold true to the Founding Fathers' decree that the executive branch of the U.S. Government should never be able to spend a dime unless and until it had been authorized and appropriated by the U.S. Congress. So, when the new 104th Congress convened this past January, the House of Representatives quickly approved a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On the Senate side, all but 1 of the 54 Republican Senators supported the balanced budget amendment. That was the good news. The bad news was that only 13 Democrat Senators supported it, and that killed the balanced budget amendment for the time being. Since a two-thirds vote--67 Senators, if all Senators are present--is necessary to approve a constitutional amendment, the proposed Senate amendment failed by one vote. There will be another vote during the 104th Congress. Here's today's bad debt boxscore: As of the close of business Monday, November 7, the Federal debt-- down to the penny--stood at exactly $4,984,737,460,958.92. That amounts to $18,922.15--on a per capita basis--for every man, woman, and child in America.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, before discussing today's bad news about the Federal debt, how about ``another go,'' as the British put it, with our pop quiz. Remember? One question, one answer. The question: How many millions of dollars does it take to add up a trillion dollars? While you are thinking about it, bear in mind that it was the U.S. Congress that ran up the Federal debt that is $27 billion away from $5 trillion. To be exact, as of the close of business Friday, November 3, the total Federal debt--down to the penny--stood at $4,984,800,213,988.31. This figure is approximately $27 billion away from $5 trillion. Another depressing figure means that on a per capita basis, every man, woman, and child in America owes $18,922.39. Mr. President, back to our pop quiz, how many million in a trillion: There are a million million in a trillion.

Mr. HELMS

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, as of the close of business yesterday, November 2, the Federal debt stood at $4,982,592,325,829.97. We are still about $27 billion away from the $5 trillion mark, unfortunately, we anticipate hitting this mark sometime later this year or early next year. On a per capita basis, every man, woman, and child in America owes $18,914.00 as his or her share of that debt.